 Have a nice time Cameron, don't forget to take the lardy cake!
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 I'm off to the mountains too....
I promise that's the last time I post a message after I get back from the pub - what a load of rubbish!
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Only a few hours before I'm off to the Brecons with all my favourite processed foods! So, to close, I'll quote from a website offered to me by Google:
"Cholesterol is a fatty molecule manufactured by the liver. While the liver only manufactures most of the cholesterol we need (about 80%), we still obtain some of the cholesterol through our diets. Contrary to the bad reputation cholesterol has received in the media lately, we DO need it. Without cholesterol, we would not have hormones such as estrogen or testosterone in our bodies. Cholesterol gives our cells the strength they need to maintain their shape. Just a little of this helps our bodies function properly. Too much cholesterol, usually brought on by eating foods high in cholesterol and fat, can cause a lot of problems, including different types of heart disease."
Hope you all have a good weekend.
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 Greg - I'll give you a little scenario.
Chap A goes to get his chol checked cos someone told him it was a good idea at his age. The doc tells him that his bad chol is high (even after a repeat test after a fast etc) and asks about family history. A's father died age 55 from a heart attack and his mother died from a stroke. A is 50.
A's doc tells him to lower his chol by diet and exercise and if it hasn't lowered in 6 months he's going to put him on some tablets (which may save his life).
Is he 'obsessed'? Is the doctor panic-mongering?
On the interweb you can't see who you are talking to and you don't know what the circumstances are. Yeah, it may be 'trendy' to check your chol and witter because it's up by one point, but the person you are calling 'obsessed' may be a person like A.
Deep breaths and try to imagine you have the person face-to-face.
Peace. Time to meditate - I can lower my blood-pressure that way....
p.s. I'm not A and neither is Bob but many people are...
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Nick - but there is 'good' chol and 'bad' chol. A proper test at the doc's will tell you which is which. High 'good chol' isn't a problem.
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Jeannie, so when looking at family history do you take the mothers side or the fathers?
I'm stuffed if it is the mothers, as all my nans brothers died from strokes/heart attacks in their 50's! But the women are fine! Dang wrong sex again!!!
If it's dads, then they all lived long lives (so far). Don't know about dad as he decided waiting to grow old wasn't worth it at the age of 40'ish.
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oh and I'm heading off to the fens this weekend to return to my roots.
Eat your heart out Cameron, I can tell you want to go and replace those mars bars for samphire!
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JJ - Yep, that's true and I know (see my reply about margarine). But as soon as you try and talk about, or explain, the differences between HDLs and LDLs, people just seem to glaze over, which I suspect is what happened to Greg.
Oh well, I'll write some more boring stuff anyway:
The traditional Greek diet is high in cholesterol but they don't tend to have the same heart problems as we have in the UK/US. This is because they eat lots of olive oil, which is a monounsaturated fat full of HDL (good!) cholesterol. HDLs actually help to reduce/reverse the effects of LDLs ("bad" cholesterol).
Animal fat is saturated fat, eg. dairy and meat. This is a source of LDLs ("bad"), but at least you know where you are with it (see below) and you can usually directly control your intake.
Most vegetable fats - in their natural, liquid state - are [poly]unsaturated, fats which generally have a neutral cholesterol effect. However, we mostly eat these fats in an hydrogenated form which, if you saw my earlier entry about margarine, means that they are basically converted into saturated fats high in LDLs and low in HDLs (the wrong end of the cholesterol see-saw to be on).
It's all about balance... we must eat fat and with that comes cholesterol, which is also essential. However, too much fat or (bad) cholesterol is bad for us.
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I've started putting olive oil into my mashed spuds now instead of butter. We're not getting any younger and it can't do any harm.
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Absolutely. My partner has been banging on about this for years and I've just laughed. Now, having spent a small amount of time reading about it, I kind of see her point.
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Actually, many visits to foreign lands and eating only local food while we're there has led to us adopting more and more of a Mediterranean diet because it's darn nice.
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I couldn't agree more, except for the fact that someone visited America once and found their food darn nice too... and look at the mess we're in! ;-)
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 Breast screening is very heavily and very well reaserched. There have been some exelent studies done lately, using huge numbers of wommen ( ammillion or so) demomstating its effectiveness at prolonging the life span, and the active life span. This sort of thing need doing in other areas, we coule be barking up the wrong tree with cholesterol. probably not but we need to know. And if cholesterol screening does work( when followed up with life style changes, drugs ect) then we shouldent have this hit nad miss affair to see who gets done.
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